NYT Essential Cook Book

I got this as a gift at Christmas. I’m not planning on doing a Julie/Julia type project, mostly because I am too lazy. (Isn’t honesty fun!) But since I am taking next week off from work, I’ll make one thing from the book, and post about it here. I can’t decide what would be best: [...]

Read Full Post »

Snow Day!

Or rather, a snowed-in weekend. Winter decided to give the midwest one last snowstorm, hooray. At least this wasn’t my weekend to work, and today the library is closed for the holiday anyway, so it really wasn’t too difficult to deal with–I sat on the sofa with Lush Puppy, drank cocoa, and read books: Zombies [...]

Read Full Post »

11 in 11

Books due out later this year that I am looking forward to: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place II: The Hidden Gallery by Maryrose Wood, 2/22 One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde, 3/8 Fury of the Phoenix by Cindy Pon, 3/29 The Devil’s Garden by Edward Docx, 4/1 in the UK, no [...]

Read Full Post »

Award Season

ALA has announced the 2011 Youth Media Awards. Congrats to all the medalists!

Read Full Post »

A.J. Jacobs

The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World A.J. decides to read the Encyclopedia Britannica over the course of a year. Hilarity, and an obnoxious vocabulary, ensue. Amusing, yes, but as for reading-the-dictionary-books, I actually prefer Reading the OED by Ammon Shea. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s [...]

Read Full Post »

The End of Overeating

It’s an interesting book, but it didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know: fast food is super bad for you, chain restaurants are too, and marketing is designed to draw you in despite that. Nothing revolutionary here. What is interesting–and new to me–was a lot of the psychological and physiological aspects that Kessler [...]

Read Full Post »

Elgin Marbles

I recently read Mistress of the Elgin Marbles, which is a biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin. She was an absolutely fascinating person, and I enjoyed learning about her adventures. Mary was a cherished only child, and also the wealthiest heiress in Scotland. She married Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin, and journeyed with him [...]

Read Full Post »

I’ll Never be French (No Matter what I do): Living in a Small Village in Brittany

Source: borrowed from library

Read Full Post »

Afghan Dreams: Young Voices of Afghanistan

Source: borrowed from library

Read Full Post »

Persepolis

I watched the movie version of Persepolis this weekend. I own the books (although not in French–need to fix that), but was curious to see how they had been adapted to the screen; I missed seeing the movie during the five minutes it played here. Wow! What a great adaptation. It’s been a while since [...]

Read Full Post »